There was a time when myth and science were entwined
When mermaids and unicorns could mysteriously appear
Nature was weird
When science revealed the truth behind these imaginary creatures
it found real animals lay behind the legends
Today, science still makes astonishing discoveries
but nature seems just as weird
It's just that fact has broken free from fiction
We catch our food in many ingenious ways
but nature is just as inventive
The bola spider can attract male moths by mimicking the scent of a female
It uses a blob of glue dangling by a thread to catch them
The spider's bola is named after an old hunting weapon
still used in south America
Gauchos threw these weighted ropes around the legs of cattle
to bring them down
The spider's version is sticky
it is cued by the beating of wings
The thread is stronger than steel
few escape
This weird journey shows many of the strange ways
that nature catches food
In nature,
it's only humans that rely on artificial tools to catch their prey
And nature's weapons put our inventions to shame
This lethal saw belongs to a freshwater shark
Monsters seven metres long patrol the rivers of northern Australia
The sawfish's long-snout is armed with pinsharp teeth that slash at prey
It drives fish to the shallows
where this living chainsaw can do its devastating work
Dismembered victims are sucked up by its under-slung mouth
While some use vicious weapons to dispatch prey
others employ the finesse of a marksman
The archerfish uses a water pistol
It makes a gunbarrel by pressing its tongue against a groove in its mouth
It closes its gills to force out the water
It's accurate up to two metres
This expert in ballistics
even allows for the curving of the jet through gravity
And adjusts for the way light bends at the boundary between water and air
which appears to shift the position of its target
By some amazing computation,
it changes its firing angle to compensate for this optical illusion
Arches target anything that moves or glows
The velvet worm employs even deadlier a firepower
One of the oldest invertebrates,
its shooting style is unique
Like a gunslinger, it has two pistols
They fire lassos of glue
The threads snake up to a metre
Its glue guns weave from side to side to spread their fire
The strands glue down the victim like a sticky net
This rapid adhesive dries in seconds
The velvet worm's knife-like jaw
pierces its victim before sucking it dry
New research suggests
that dolphins also have a weapon that can be fired at prey
but one based on sound
Dolphins use a form of sonar to investigate their world
They create an image by sending out a sound beam
and decoding the returning echoes
These pulses of high intensity ultrasound
can penetrate the sand and even create a sound picture of buried fish
By upping the intensity,
the dolphin appears to turn its sound system into a weapon
The blasts disorientate prey,
making them easy to catch
Sonic weapons have been perfected by others
Far from being quiet,
the ocean is filled with a cacophony of animal noise
that can even disrupt the sonic transmissions of submarines
Most of the dings made by a surprisingly insignificant creature
the pistol shrimp
By snapping its claws it can not only make communication sounds,
but something far deadlier
These shrimps are its prey
It deals a knockout blow from a distance
by using its claw as a sonic weapon
First its claw is cocked like a pistol
then fire
The effect: he is literally stunned
As the claw snap shot, it fires a blast of bubbles
Incredibly as the bubbles collapse,
they momentarily reach the temperature of the sun
This implosion causes a shot wave that stuns
This is also the haunt of other weird feeders
The frogfish gives fastfood a new meaning
It can catch its prey quicker than any other creature
It uses its fins as legs to creep its camouflaged body around
Prey fooled by the disguise is grabbed faster than the eye can see
The process takes 1/6000 second
quicker than any creature can react
Extreme slow motion reveals what no animal eye can see
Its mouth balloons 12 times creating a vacuum that sucks in prey
The frogfish has the fastest known movement in the animal world
But it isn't the only fastfood addict in the ocean
The extraordinary eyes of the mantis shrimp
a creature famed for its highspeed knockout punch
Its speciality is breaking into crab shells
It finds its prey using the most sophisticated targeting system in nature
Our eyes have three types of color analysing cells
The mantis has 16 arranged in bands
They target their prey like crosshairs
The mantis's heavy calcified clubs can be swung at prey
They strike at lightning speed
The clubs smash with the force of a 0.22 caliber bullet
They shatter glass as easily as they pulverize a crab shell
An eagle's way of breaking into prey gave rise to a Greek legend
It concerned a soothsayer
who prophesied that a poet would die when a house fell down on him
The story arose in an area
where golden eagles prey almost exclusively on tortoises
It has a beak that surgically cut through flesh
and effortlessly rip skin from bone
and talons that can pierce and crush almost any prey
But these tools are no match for the tortoise's armor
The eagle's solution fulfilled the soothsayer's prophecy
The poet did die from a falling house,
but one that belonged to a tortoise
Its dive keeps up with its hapless prey
The impact achieved what defeat the talons
In the mountainous regions of northern Greece
chicks are reared almost exclusively on tortoises
But even the specialist tools of the eagle
need help to keep the food coming
But one tool specialist is more perfectly equipped
It lives in the forests of Madagascar
Its specialist tool is a bony finger
In a remarkable adaptation,
the aye-aye finds hidden prey by tapping with this elongated middle digit
Hollow cavities make a characteristic echo
Variations in the echoes build up a 3-D picture of the cavity
It also listens for the characteristic sound of a wood boring grub
Its ears cup the sound and confirm the spot
The aye-aye's tool then converts into a probe
A sniff confirms there is life
The finger transforms again
this time into a gaff hook
Reaching inaccessible prey is a problem with many natural solutions
The chameleon's independent swiveling eyes help it locate its meal
They act as range finders only coming together
when prey is firmly within their sights
Reliable targeting is vital when using their projectile tongue
an organ that new research shows is more remarkable than was thought
The converging eyes help confirm distance,
crucial for range finding
With a tongue longer than its body
it needs long range accuracy
But some challenges are just too great
But they do reveal the tongue's mechanics
Circular muscles contract to shoot forward
The sticky tip then forms a suction cup
The sucked tip allows some chameleons to even pluck small birds from the air
Its tongue extension is the fastest movement of any land animal
It accelerates to 50g,
five times that of a fighter plane
Cuttlefish also use a long reach to catch food at a distance
Instead of a tongue, they deploy two extendable tentacles
Like the chameleon's tongue,
the ends form suckers
Each sucker has a ring of minute teeth
which bite into its prey to increase grip
Having two tentacles also means they can act like tongs
They accelerate at 25g,
half the speed of the chameleon's tongue
but even more impressive is they have to plow through water
Cuttlefish have more mysterious powers
They appear to specialise in hypnosis
These bands of color are under nervous control
The effect can be hypnotic
Pigment cells beneath the skin
expand and contract to create a mesmerizing display
The pulsing seems to create a deadly fascination
But the cuttlefish may not be alone in using hypnotic powers
Rabbits are a stoat's favorite prey
Stoats are living bundles of energy and live life at breakneck speed
They can tackle prey ten times their size,
if they can catch them
To help, they do something quite strange
This manic dance seems to be for the rabbit's benefit
And it appears to cast a spell
It's a deadly kind of enchantment
Some snakes have found other ways to fool
The death adder is one of Australia's deadliest and most perfectly camouflaged serpents
and it has a deadly trick
Its tail wriggles like a live lure
Skinks are among its favorite prey
They are especially partial to insect larvae
This snake's tail wriggles like a beetle grub
Its squirming tip even mimics a grub's segments
Any animal finds it hard to tell the difference
As the lizard nears,
the writhing intensifies as the snake tries to lure it closer
But a reprieve is at hand
The death adder is aptly named
half of all humans bitten die
Crocodiles also lunge at prey
They rely on stealth and a jump that exceeds their body length
Many fish have also found that leaping makes the perfect ambush
A tail flip propels the archerfish from the surface
They often prefer this direct approach to shooting down prey with water
These leaps are only used on prey that's close to the surface
But the arowana is the ultimate high jumper
It jumps two metres out of the water
A long tail provides propulsion
Swiveling eyes help with targeting
The arowana performs this feat
using rhythmic waves of its long muscular tail
Nature's animals use many fantastic ways of feeding,
from the graceful to the bizarre
But we are the weirdest of all
We have no natural means to catch the animals we eat
Sometimes our equipment catches more than we bargained for
Subtitles by Andrew and Hattie www.mvgroup.org